Video Overview

This four-minute video describes the Grand River's role in the economy and culture of the people who settled along its banks. A description of the Grand River Revitalization Project is also provided.

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Unit Overview

The history of the Grand River is divided into six eras, from Pre-settlement to Today. As outlined in the Unit Overview, each era has three resources associated with it:

1. A primary source reading related to the Grand River

2. Artifacts about the Grand River from that era

3. Summary of what happened to the Grand River during that era

Depending on the needs of your classroom, these eras could be covered as a whole class activity over a series of days, or small groups could become experts on their era and then share their findings with their classmates. Group sharing is easily facilitated by creating a large timeline on a wall using butcher paper and having students add details and share out about their era.

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Student Exploration of History of the Grand River

Lead students on an exploration of the history and culture of the Grand River through different eras of time with primary source documents, artifacts, and summaries of events. Students can complete the 1.2a Social and Economic Impact student page to build an understanding of the people and events over time surrounding the Grand River. As the unit progresses through different eras, students can individually create their own graphs depicting population trends and significant events. Alternatively, the class could collaborate to produce a large wall graph. The Lesson Sequence also contains an overview of all the documents, artifacts, and summaries in the lesson.  

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